Briefly: Halloween is the perfect day to announce news on a horror remake — it’s the best day for digging up the dead, after all. The new version of the story originally created as a novel by Stephen King was announced a couple years ago, and had Alexandre Aja attached to direct a few months later.

And why not remake Pet Sematary? The first film has its charms (Fred Gwynne’s ridiculous accent, the Ramones, and a good Achilles tendon slice among them), but it can’t be called good. But the story, about a young father that takes advantage of a magical Native American burial ground to re-animate his dead son, is a good one. There’s a lot of chilling material there, which helps elevate even the most uninspired bits of the original film.

The script is by Matt Greenberg (1408, Reign Of Fire) and David Kajganich (The Invasion) and now 28 Weeks Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has been set to direct. Granted, the director has been attached to two other remakes, The Crow and Highlander, and neither of those have worked out. Will this one live a full life, or will it die once more, and require burial in some horrifically enchanted earth to be revived down the road? [Variety]

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Briefly: The Highlander remake needs a new director. Most recently, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) was set to direct, after having taken over when Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious franchise) exited. But now Fresnadillo is out, too. Reportedly the reason he moved on was based in a simple “creative differences” scenario. Fresnadillo wanted one version of the story, and Summit wanted another.

Deadline says that Ryan Reynolds remains attached to star as the man who discovers that he is immortal, and is soon drawn into a “game” to claim a prize of ultimate knowledge and awareness. (Reynolds was never officially confirmed as the lead for the film, but has been strongly rumored for the role in the past few months.) The site also says Summit is still high on the remake, thanks to the Art Marcum and Matt Holloway script, and will quickly look for a new director. The goal seems to be to hew pretty close to the original 1986 film that launched a stuttering franchise with seven features and multiple TV series between the debut and 2007.

For about a year now, Let Me In and Cloverfield director Matt Reeves has been attached to a new theatrical film based on The Twilight Zone. It was just one of several projects on the director’s plate and certainly the most high profile. In that time, multiple writers had been tasked with writing a screenplay but, with nare a greenlight in sight after a year, it seems Reeves has decided to move on. He will no longer direct Warner Bros. new Twilight Zone movie.

Instead, he’s now become the frontrunner to replace Rupert Wyatt as the director of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Also on the short list behind Reeves: J Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed), Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later),Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter),Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy), Juan Antonio Bayona (The Impossible) and Rian Johnson (Looper). Read more after the jump.

Briefly: Not too long ago Ryan Reynolds was nominated to become the new champion decapitator at the center of the Highlanderreboot. He would theoretically be stepping into the shoes formerly worn by Christopher Lambert, who played a Scottish Highlander who learns that he is born of an immortal bloodline. The catch is: immortality actually kinda sucks, because it turns into a game of “watch your loved ones die.” Oh, and other immortals want to kill you in order to claim “the Prize,” which is basically an always-on universal awareness. (In other words: Twitter.)

Anyway, today has seen a glut of posts saying the Reynolds is confirmed for the role. But The Playlist talked to a couple sources which say that while Reynolds has been in talks, no deal is signed. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is still set to direct from a script by Melissa Rosenberg (Dexter, Twilight) with extra work from Art Marcum and Matt Holloway.

The game BioShock was a massive hit when it was released in 2007. One of the better examples of world-building in gaming, the original title was set in Rapture, an underwater city built by an entrepreneur that wouldn’t e out of place in an Ayn Rand novel. But things had gone bad — power struggles and genetic tinkering destroyed Rapture’s hope for the future. The upshot, for us, is that the damaged Rapture turned out to be a darkly beautiful gaming playground.

Gore Verbinski was once set to direct a film version of BioShock for Universal, but he ended up vacating the director’s chair and staying on as producer. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who directed Intacto and 28 Weeks Later, came on to direct, and as recently as a couple weeks back he was still talking in cautious terms about the movie. But now he says he’s off the project for good. Read More »

In the five years since the release of his zombie sequel 28 Weeks Later, director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has been attached to a several major Hollywood projects. First wasBioShock, based on a best-selling underwater, steampunk inspired video game. Then there was a reboot ofThe Crow, which could have possibly starred Mark Wahlberg, Bradley Cooper or Channing Tatum. Both those projects have yet to, and may never, see the light of day.

Then there’s the latest film on Fresnadillo’s plate, a remake of Highlander, a film Justin Lin was set to do before dropping out to finish his Fast and the Furious movies. Little has been said about that project but while promoting his latest film, Intruders, at South by Southwest, Fresnadillo revealed it could be his next film and more. Read More »

The new version of The Crow may be stalled out, but you can now get a look at what could have been. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was the most recent in a line of possible directors to reboot James O’Barr‘s story The Crow, and he was going to make the film with Bradley Cooper starring as slain rocker and boyfriend Eric Draven, who is supernaturally brought back to some sort of life to exact revenge on the criminals who killed him and his girlfriend.

Bradley Cooper moved away from the film late this summer, and last month Juan Carlos Fresnadillo also walked, leaving The Crow grounded. But we can see what Bradley Cooper may have looked like in the role via concept art, below. Read More »

The reboot of The Crow that has been trying to get under way for over a year may have hit another roadblock. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later), the director who was signed to helm the film in April, has left the project. Read More »

The reboot of Highlander, which Summit has been working on with various degrees of enthusiasm for the past couple years, is getting a new director. Justin Lin was signed to make the film, but walked not long ago. Now Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who directed 28 Weeks Later and now, four years later, has Intruders opening at TIFF, is in talks with Summit to direct the remake.

Update: This deal has been finalized; the press release from Summit has been added below. Read More »